Specter switch is a setback for old-style union goons

Carpenter

March 27, 2009|By Paul Carpenter Of The Morning Call

Emotions ran deep in Pennsylvania's coal regions after the murders of United Mine Workers reformer Joseph "Jock" Yablonski and his wife and daughter -- inside their Clarksville, Pa., home, in the dead of night, by killers hired by UMW officials.

Because of that, the trial of one accused killer, UMW President W.A. "Tony" Boyle, was moved away from coal fields to the Philadelphia suburb of Media.

I worked in the Philly bureau of The Associated Press at the time (1974) and was assigned to cover that sensational trial. To this day, I think Boyle was innocent of those murders. He was a crook, to be sure, but other UMW officials had more reason to kill Yablonski and got deals in return for testifying against him.

Boyle had a dreadful lawyer, however, and the prosecutor was the brilliant and ruthless Richard Sprague, who more recently has represented notable casino owner Louis DeNaples.

In any case, Boyle died in prison 11 years later.

More to the point (in view of today's main debate over unions) is the story of how the UMW became so corrupt in those days, when union bosses were able to rig elections involving mine workers or (in Boyle's case) even former workers.

Just this week, backers of the perversely-named Employee Free Choice Act -- which actually would deny workers a free choice by eliminating secret ballots in union elections -- had a setback when Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter decided to oppose the EFCA bill.

I'll get back to that, but it was in 1959 that new federal laws provided for secret ballots in union elections. John L. Lewis retired as UMW president the next year, which eventually led to Boyle taking over. Woeful corruption in the UMW ensued and, in 1969, Yablonski challenged Boyle.

That 1959 secret ballot law was widely ignored after Democrats, financed by union bosses, took over the executive branch. With the help of a bogus election, Boyle defeated Yablonski.

Yablonski then launched a new crusade to clean up UMW corruption, particularly in District 19 in Kentucky and Tennessee. It was District 19 officials who hired some inept punks to murder the Yablonski family.

Before the murders, the U.S. Department of Labor did little to enforce the law requiring secret ballots in union elections. After the murders, things changed.

In 1972, with UMW President Boyle behind bars, federal courts threw out the results of his 1969 election, partly because, as Time magazine put it, the union "failed to ensure that individual miners could cast their votes in secrecy."

When union goons can see which way individual workers vote, it seems, the workers can be persuaded to vote in certain ways.

Without goons looking over their shoulders, mine workers elected another reformer, Arnold Miller.

The UMW and the Democrats were not alone in corruption. Other unions, particularly the Teamsters, supported by top Republicans, were even more corrupt, thanks in part to the ability of goons to control how workers voted.

Now we have a plan to let union goons confront workers, face-to-face, one at a time, with cards requesting union representation. I call it the "Sign This Card Or Else Program."

Current law says that if 30 percent of workers are persuaded to sign such cards, a company can either recognize the union, or can call for an election by employees with secret ballots.

The EFCA removes the secret ballot provision if the goons can bully a majority of workers to sign cards.

Specter backed such a change two years ago, but reversed himself this week, calling the secret ballot "the cornerstone of how contests are decided in a democratic society."

His stance is crucial because union bosses now pretty much pull the strings in the House of Representatives, which probably would pass the EFCA easily. But it can be defeated by a filibuster in the Senate. Sixty votes are needed to quash a filibuster, and Specter is on the cusp of that tally.

If the goons are defeated, I think Jock Yablonski may be able to rest a little easier in his grave.